This is something that has puzzled me for a while, where does the small 'floating' c in some names such as McDougall or McCarthy come from and what is it called? You can't make the c go above the other letters on the computer but when you write some names by hand that is what you do.
Originally posted by prosoccerI don't know what it is called, but the Mc is an abbreviation of the gaelic "mac" meaning son. McDougal=MacDougal=Son of Dougal.
This is something that has puzzled me for a while, where does the small 'floating' c in some names such as McDougall or McCarthy come from and what is it called? You can't make the c go above the other letters on the computer but when you write some names by hand that is what you do.
The reason that the c is put into superscript is because it is an abbreviation, a bit like when "numbers" is abbreviated to N°. This is derived from the first and last letters of the French "numero".
Originally posted by agrysonWell thank you. I looked on wikipedia after athousandyoung said the name of it but it said only a few letters could be superscripted, and c wasn't one of them. It's good to know that my family isn't a bunch of drunken fools in how we spell our name.
Incidentally it is increasingly common to exclude the superscript and simply leave the c in normal script. Possibly because it's hard to do with a keyboard.